Help Kiribati Stone Warriors Fight, Save it from Sinking

Kiribati is a
nation of around 100,000 people who live on a raised coral
island and 33 atolls. It is one of the low-laying islands in
the Pacific with its highest point of just three metres
above sea level.

The country is one of the islands that
have been most seriously threatened by climate change
effects. A further sea level rise of only one metre would
make a big impact on the life of inhabitants on the atolls.

As such, the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference
held in December last year in Durban, South Africa was
disappointing since the Conference concluded with an
agreement for further talks on a new climate change
agreement with legal force by 2015 to be ratified by
2020.

“There is no time to waste,” Pelenise Alofa, a
member of the Kiribati Climate Action Network stated in the
Weekend Observer, 7 January 2012.

“We need to build more
seawalls and work on water projects. The biggest threat to
Kiribati is coastal erosion and water salinisation. We need
to address these problems before 2020,” she said.

While
the international community is delaying actions, the country
of Kiribati in itself is at risk of disappearing together
with its peoples and their memory.

In a November 2011
statement of Ambassador Dessima Williams, Chair of the Small
Island State Alliance, which represents 39 small island
nations in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and
twenty-eight percent of developing countries, she asserted:
“If Durban puts off a legally binding agreement and closes
the door on raising mitigation ambition before 2020 many of
our small island states will be literary and figuratively
doomed.”

“As noted by the International Energy
Agency, delaying action until 2017 would close the door to
any hope of keeping warming below 2C and put humanity on a
course to the devastation of 4C warming and many metres of
sea level rise.

“The proposed 2020 timeline would also
leave more than five years between the next report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC due in 2014
and a new round of emission reduction commitments. A key
demand of the Small Island Alliance is a second five-year
commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, which currently binds 37
industrialized nations and the European Union to reduce
their carbon emissions to agreed targets by 2012, and a new
parallel agreement for those with no current Kyoto
obligations.”

Kiribati is a state party to the UNESCO
World Heritage Convention. The Phoenix Islands Protected
Area in the east of Kiribati, one of the largest marine
protected areas in the world, was inscribed on the World
Heritage List in 2010.

The wealth of Kiribati heritage is
found not only in nature but also in culture. The Culture
Division of the Ministry of Internal and Social Affairs that
is in charge of cultural affairs at the Kiribati Government
recently organised a workshop on the safeguarding of
Intangible Cultural Heritage in Kiribati in order to discuss
a safeguarding strategy in cooperation with the UNESCO
Office in Apia and with financial assistance of the
Government of Japan.

One of the most notable outcomes of
the workshop was the support expressed by the Elders to
Kiribati’s ratification of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage Convention. In Kiribati, the Elders have been
responsible for overseeing matters relating to the community
life in the country. Historically, they have been regarded
as source of wisdom by community members and their
authorities still prevails even nowadays. The effectiveness
of any external interventions therefore depends on the
endorsement of the Elders of the country.

A draft of
five-year strategy and action plan for Intangible Cultural
Heritage safeguarding in Kiribati was also prepared during
the workshop by the participants and endorsed by the
Elders.

Like many other Pacific islands, in Kiribati
heritage is an all-embracing concept. Tangible and
intangible cultural heritage co-exist together in living
environment. For example, in Kiribati there remains a unique
cultural heritage, called Nnabakana. Its history has been
known to this date through oral histories and traditions
transmitted from generation to generation among local
communities.

Nnabakana, located at Tabiteuea, one of the
southern islands of Kiribati, contains huge stone monuments
with associated stories of battles that were fought among
islands around the 16th century. These monuments are
human-made stone pillars, six of which remain unspoiled,
resembling giant human warriors built to scare away enemies.
Some of them are more than three metres high.

When placed
six metres apart in a row on the coastal side of the islet
and seen from the distance, the pillars look like an army of
giants marching ready for war.

The Kiribati’s Culture
Division recently undertook research on the site. Through
the research, the Culture Division obtained GPS data, images
and video footages relating to Nnabakana site as well as
interviews with locals living nearby.

The outcome of the
research clearly showed the unique value of the Nnabakana
site in Kiribati for the cultural history of early civil
wars between islands. This evidence remains today through
the manmade pillars, signs of art and warfare skills.

The
rich oral stories on the civil war makes the site
particularly interesting for Kiribati where foreign contents
still dominate its history education at school. Pacific
islanders have been taught about “The Battle of Waterloo
by Napoleon” through foreign-made curricula and text
books, while they have not had a chance to learn of Pacific
civil war.

The research result also shows the urgent need
of its safeguarding since the site located at the coastal
zone is exposed to harsh weather conditions facing threats
from rising sea level. The site is fully exposed to the hot
sunny days, affecting most pillars that cracked and toppled.
The strong winds from the west, high tides and big waves are
also forcing the pillars to fall and get destroyed.

The
Kiribati’s Culture Division presented the outcome of the
research at the Pacific World Heritage Workshop held in Apia
in September last year. The presentation caught the
attention of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and
resulted in the financial assistance from the European Union
through the Secretariat to support a mapping exercise of the
site in 2012.

This new grant will allow the Culture
Division to obtain carbon dating information and to carry
out further documentation and recording. The steps to be
followed would be to organise consultations with the Elders
of communities concerned and to formulate a long-term
management and safeguarding plan for this unique heritage.

Nowadays, the stone warriors are fighting primarily
against the new enemy of climate change, since Kiribati may
exist only as underwater cultural heritage in the future if
the international community continues to delay actions. It
is hoped that safeguarding the Nnabakana site will help
Kiribati to further advocate for the emergency of its
situation, paving a way for long-term solutions by, for
example, nominating the heritage for international
recognition under the UNESCO Culture Conventions.

Notes:

From civil war to Kiribati stone
warriorsAccording to the oral traditions, there was
a civil war long time ago in Kiribati. It was started when a
little island called Beru in the south of Kiribati was
overpopulated, and Kaitu, its leader, set out on a mission
of conquest sometime around 1550. Kaitu selected Uakeia as
his strategist. And he launched a military expedition with
an army of 600 men travelling in 37 large war canoes and
outriggers. The first landing was made at the southern end
of Tabiteuea. The locals at Tabiteuea fled, warning the
northern villages and gathering forces to fight with the
army under Kaitu. Some sources stated that local informants
said that Kaitu and group were from Beru while Uakeia and
few others were from Nikunau,both islands were one during
the conquest.

Expecting a battle with the Tabiteueans,
Kaitu consulted his strategist Uakeia. Uakeia turned to god
for advice. The god told him that the battle would take
place on Tabiteuea at Tabuaeroa where a piece of land
between two islets was left uncovered at low tide. Then the
Beru and Nikunau army spent an entire day and night in
setting up 30 stone men who were twice as high as an
ordinary man. These stone men armed with spears and placed
to defend the islet looked like mighty and intimidating
figures. On the next morning, the Tabiteueans saw these
colossal warriors defending the islet and took them for the
Beru chiefs. They were scared by the sight and fled. Then
Kaitu continued his advance up the atolls.

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